Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday January 02, 2012 @02:20PM
from the makeover-time dept.

SharkLaser writes "Google's search engine has always looked pretty much the same since it was introduced in 1998. However, Google is now testing a revamped look that is the largest change the search engine has ever done to its website. The new look strips the black bar running horizontally at top and places it as an openable menu on the left side. The move is said to promote Google's other services without making the search engine too cluttered. The new side menu is also more similar to Chrome OS and allows Chromebook and Google's website to have the same look and feel. Another consequence of the move is that it now takes users two clicks to enter other services such as Images and News, which is said to improve the amount of ad clicks and visitors advertisers get. Considering that European Commission is examining claims of Google downgrading rival websites and U.S. senators are calling FTC to inspect Google for unfair practices, the move comes at a surprising time."

Why do you think it's bashing? It's reporting news. Just because it's Google doesn't mean they should not be reported, just like Microsoft, Apple and other companies. Or are you saying we should give Google a pass on every time just because you love them?

I just find the inclusion of stuff about the law suits to be really stupid. I get that you wanted to fill out the summary since the entirety of the article could be reduced down to. Google has slightly changed the look of their site, making their non search related features more prominent.

Giving prominence to your own services on your own website is hardly controversial. Looking at your article submissions I would say you are pushing an agenda of your own. This is the internet though and it's not like you can even expect real journalists not to push their own views. Still you could be less obvious about it.

If it's true, of course it's controversial; not to mention anti-competitive and therefore illegal. It's all about context. The vast majority of content on the internet is found via search engines. Google are the dominant player in the search engine market. Clearly, using their market position as the gate keeper of all things internet to push their plethora of other services is very anti-competitive and hugely controversial.

Illegal is for the courts to decide. In the US at least they seem to be leaning in favor of the first amendment. In the US the content of a US website is a freedom of speech issue beyond the power of the government to regulate. At least for now.

"If it's true, of course it's controversial" -> it's their own website. They are free to promote or not promote whomever or whatever they life. They are a business...it would be like forcing McDonalds to show advertisements for Burger King.

"not to mention anti-competitive and therefore illegal. It's all about context" -> most competition is anti-competitive. By their very nature, companies are always trying to outmaneuver other companies.

"If it's true, of course it's controversial" -> it's their own website. They are free to promote or not promote whomever or whatever they life. They are a business...it would be like forcing McDonalds to show advertisements for Burger King.

Competition law exists because things really aren't that simple. In a capitalist society, healthy competition is what helps ensure prices are low and products are constantly improving. At some point, a company can do so well in one market sector (yes, usually because they've earned it), that they can use that leverage, if they so choose, to gain an unfair advantage in another market sector. Sure, there's a grey area, but there's limits. This is well established under monopoly and dominance provisions within

Unfortunately an almost meaningless assertion these days due to people seeking to establish "controversy" as a tactic in achieving some other goal.

not to mention anti-competitive and therefore illegal.

How so? It's pointless to make such a statement without saying why. Merely offering other products seems entirely unproblematic under established competition law [wikipedia.org]. For example it seems to me there' no evidence of tying, anyone is free to choose which of Google's prod

If it's true, of course it's controversial; not to mention anti-competitive

Stop right there!

I'm a bit thick - please explain how Google is anti-competitive? Are they stopping other player in the advertising game? Are they threatening companies that buy advertising by adjusting prices on the basis of exclusive contracts?

I spend a lot of money on paid advertising with a five of the major search engines (Google is number 3, despite the alleged monopoly) - and only one of those companies has ever asked if I used another company (Bing). And they didn't offer me any incentive to drop G

I think you're missing my point. For a start, these anti-competition complaints are largely related to organic search results, not ads.

I'm yet to see any evidence of that - despite the amazing coincidence of an inquiry taking place in the US at the same time as in Australia.

All I heard so far is people saying it happens - but failing to supply a shred of proof. So I call bullshit.

First the claim was that Google was giving paid advertising (like I buy) an unfair advantage over "organic search results"... In Australia, despite refusing to "prosecute" because they were unable to find an evidence to support the claim ACMA was still dragged to

It is when they're pushing them in the usual search results. It's somewhat cheating, and certainly not honest. That's why Google is probably giving them that prominence by moving them to better places, but outside the search results. That's what EU has been giving them trouble for, anyway.

Real journalists are supposed to push their own views. That is an integral part of journalism.

The original news link is from the BBC, which is required to be as un-biased as possible when reporting news.

Any bias and pushed viewpoints are from the submitter of the article to slashdot (arguably irrelevant to the actual article and just added to push their viewpoint further). Whether someone who submits a link from an actual news source and adds their own biased commentary to slashdot is a Real journalist is also up for detate (but risks invoking the True Scottsman fallacy)

That's a BBC policy, but it doesn't address the expectations we should have of journalists. Nevertheless, the policy itself (if it is as worded, which I doubt) is at best implemented after the bias of omission, and at worst would result in a completely meaningless stream of non-news. The purpose of journalism is to provide information, illumination and context about important facts. Every facet of that pursuit is biased—determining which facts are important, determining what context should be included

Journalism is necessarily directed by interest, and the questions asked are necessarily directed by distinct concerns about distinct details. The world is composed of innumerable facts, and to report all of them without discrimination is to completely undermine journalism. To be a journalist is, inherently, to discriminate between which facts are important and which facts are unimportant. That is by definition pushing a view.

Giving prominence to your own services on your own website is hardly controversial.

It is if you're a monopoly. Microsoft got into the same trouble over Internet Explorer in the 1990s.

If Google had popups warning you that your non-Chrome browser was a risk, if Google had no set prices for advertising - and told you it'd cost you double (or more) if you used other advertising companies, if Google copied every successful app that ran on Android and released their own version with Android and made it as hard as possible for the original app to be used on Android, if Google offered management golf club and holidays under the table in return for over-riding the purchasing decisions of the tec

No they didn't. I can't decide if you're ignorant, stupid or paid to do this.
Microsoft got into trouble because they made it almost impossible to use the alternatives. They're still trying to do this with Bing.

Funny, I managed to use Netscape on Windows quite happily in the 90s until Netscape themselves fucked things up with Navigator/Communicator 4.

Google products (mostly services) represents a completely different paradigm to Microsoft products (mostly software), call it post-desktop or whatever, but it's not even fully-realized yet. It's a bit pre-mature to compare them to Microsoft.

It's so hard to tell between paid shilling or general idiocy nowadays.

It's so hard to tell between paid shilling or general idiocy nowadays.

I think the main idiocy around here recently has been fanboys calling people paid shills just because they don't think that Apple/Google/whoever are the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel, or that Microsoft are more evil than Pol Pot, Stalin and Hitler put together.

Everything gets bashed here. Frankly I find the quality of bashing inferior at least - a long-dead issue about a deprecated google app engine that was cute but impractical and unpopular, and a non-newsworthy page redesign issue with non sequitur low-risk and very old regulatory FUD just tagged onto the end without any rhyme or reason. If you're going to bash Google, at least put some effort into quality bashing and not bring this weak sauce. And hey, does it have to be twice an hour on the same target?

The main problem with the trolls is their so inefective. I mean goodness, they're not even ugly enough to crack my screen just from looking at their posts. What we need are some ogres that are ugly nuff to curdle milk in the cow, fracture your screen with their reflection and mean enough to untangle a gordian knot

I'd never even heard of DuckDuckGo, and then suddenly I see all sorts of "testimonials" in this thread. That seems really odd, especially given that, according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], it is now starting to occasionally be ad-funded (whereas before it was totally funded by its developer). Coincidence, or astroturfing?

It's been slowly building on Slashdot for a while now, at least six months. I gave it a trial run and it seemed fine. Didn't quite cause me to change my habits and leave google, but I wouldn't have minded. It's decent, and I've recommended it as an alternative a couple times.

But it really doesn't find good results and now that I know it has Bing for it's search, I see why. It has some neat features, but I actually tried to use it and ended up going back to Google because I couldn't find stuff.

OTOH, techies are also the same people who can exploit Google back. i.e. Install privacy addons, No-Script, Ad-Blockers etc and use Google services without giving anything "back".

With Google you take what you get. Yeah maybe you wont get the Capital-F-Freedom that Stallman or the kind F/OSS supporters want, but you get positive business news associated with Linux. Why wouldn't Linux supporters like that? You should remember how it was earlier with companies being able to fund negative press campaigns agains

Agreed that this is hardly earth shattering news. I have to ask though, does anyone actually use the google.com start page? I'm either using Gmail, or search from the URL Bar in Chrome, or from the dedicated Google box in whatever other browser I'm using. The only time I see Google's start page is when I do a fresh install.

This is profound because Google's appeal is in its simple, link-based appearance. Now it's beginning to look like a MySpace, with all the boxy web2.0 menus, and that's not good. Take a look at Youtube, and consider that may be the direction they're heading.

Like all big companies who hunger for constant growth, Google will only get worse as time goes on, and may even face a speedier than usual decline unless they actually sell shit (real hardware or software products, not just sets of "mouse clicks") lik

It's really not news to anyone who uses Google products. It's their Google+ menu now on the search page.In general they are whitespacing and boxpadding things up, but this new menu is basically my current iGoogle pulldown menu with icons.

I get the old version of Google if I'm using my desktop but the new one with my laptop. It's very annoying. Reminds me of the multiple versions of yahoo that I use to get. And worse, it's starting to feel that google.com is turning into the latest "portal" website.

The new interface requires more mouse movement than the older and cleaner google. It now takes one drop menu and one side expansion menu to get to "finance". Plus, sometimes my search query doesn't transfer from "web" (now "search") to "images" or "finance".

That turns the clock back even more. No animations, no music, no pop-up junk on the side for search results (instant previews or whatever they call it), etc.

I think that Google might need to offer new stuff to attract the type of person that finds the likes of Bing amusing. Having choice is a good thing. However, forcing [yet more] eye candy on people is going to alienate those (like me, who are already irritated) who just want minimal, fast, simple. Something that isn't distracting, irritating, CPU loading, complex, and doesn't use mouseovers or javascript. Personally, I would even prefer a new domain for it, like cgoogle.com so it can be easily whitelisted.

Sure would be nice. But google seems to be having a "automaker" complex. "We're so big, we're so great, we're so kick ass. The peons will take what we give them and like it. Where else will they go?" For those that don't get it, GM, Ford, Chrysler, AMC and so on said the same thing back when Japan was crushing them in the 70's and 80's. AMC didn't survive. Chrysler nearly didn't.

Yeah I really don't like the changes at all, and by going with what's been said on their groups pages? The majority there don't like it at all. But then again, those are the people who can find them.

Everytime they screw up the Google search page (which I have made my home page since 1999) I try to find a way to disable it and revert to the classic mode, and if I can't find it, type a bunch of searches on the latest Google screwing with the search to see how others are coping with it (or not).

And each time I find quotes from that Marisa whatever saying she will do whatever she wants to it, they want to be on the cutting edge (or at least not left behind by Bing's changes or whatever).

This is only happening to my laptop so far, not my desktops, but doesn't appear to be a way to revert it.

The experience with Google is slipping day by day, attributed to Marisa's (or whatever her name is - I don't feel like Googling it in a rant against Google) perpetual meddling with it as that constitutes her justification for existence at Google.

But everything else is worse. If it gets bad enough I'll use scripts to display the Google pages the way I want but it hasn't come to that yet. She's basically a major annoyance to me so far.

How is it a surprising time? A few ongoing legal procedures means that they can't make aesthetic changes to their website? Also, it does not take "two clicks" to enter Google Images - just a mouseover and a click.

I'm pretty sure the last two sentences were just tacked on as flamebait, as they are either false or unrelated.

How is Google using search to promote their other properties any different from FOX airing ads for upcoming shows during a football game? If they didn't have any real competition, I could understand it, but the search market has lots of competitors.

How is Google using search to promote their other properties any different from FOX airing ads for upcoming shows during a football game? If they didn't have any real competition, I could understand it, but the search market has lots of competitors.

If you have overwhelming dominance in one area, it is illegal to leverage that dominance to gain in other markets. It is legal to bundle shampoo and conditioner and sell them as a package right up until you gain dominance (guidance is 70%) of either the shampoo or conditioner market. As far as I know, no one has alleged Fox has 70% market share of, well any market. Google, on the other hand is estimated to have reached this dominance in several markets including mobile advertising where some put their marke

Last I heard, Google had less than 65% market share. Not very dominant if you ask me.

65% is fairly close, but then you have to specify a market to have a share of it, and a lot of antitrust law deals with defining the relevant markets. Take a subset of customers, like mobile phone users, then subtract out all of the services that don't work for mobile users and does Google have more than 70% of the remaining share? Is that influencing other markets where they have bundled a service with their products? Then again, you have to also remove non-relavent shares of the market, where they are not

No, you can't "define" markets by choosing arbitrary subsets, like "search engine providers with 'oogle' in their name, or Application search providers for mobile computers with an 'apple shaped' logo on them. The entire market is the entire market.

You're an idiot. You have to define what the "entire market" is in order to meaningfully discuss or evaluate it.

It depends on what it is that you are saying Google has a monopoly in. Their search market share is about 65%. I would say it isn't a monopoly because there are basically no barriers to entry for a new competitor. If it went to court, it would be easy for Google to show how things like Facebook and Apple's Siri are disrupting their business.

If you define their business as advertising, then it might be a different story. I have no idea what their market share is in online advertising.

It depends on what it is that you are saying Google has a monopoly in. Their search market share is about 65%. I would say it isn't a monopoly because there are basically no barriers to entry for a new competitor.

I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding why we have antitrust law. It is not about insuring other companies can compete in a market and destroy the monopoly. It is about making sure the monopoly does not grow to influence other markets and damage commerce in general. If the point was to prevent monopolies we'd make monopolies illegal.

Regardless of what barriers to entry there are, the question at hand is if Google has enough influence in a given market, that they have to obey specific laws with regard

"If you compare the original Google home page to today's version, you will see that a makeover every so often can certainly be refreshing."

This is quite possibly the single stupidest meme in the long, sad history of stupid web design memes, and it's been the death of many a once-fine site. No, a makeover on a familiar (good) interface is not "refreshing." It's irritating, especially since it pretty much always means adding clutter to something that used to be clean and functional. It is usually pushed on users with a patronizing explanation, after a "beta" period in which people loudly and repeatedly point out its flaws, and the new interface eventually becomes the default (or only) choice with none of the problems found in "beta" addressed.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If there's something wrong, fine, fix that and leave the rest alone. And for God's sake, listen to the users.

I sort of disagree--change can be refreshing, but can easily be a hassle. On the PS3, Netflix has changed the design quite often. Sometimes it's for the better, and sometimes it's not. The worst design change was when they briefly took away the "recently watched" section from the home screen. Made watching TV shows a very painful process.

That said, I like Google's current design a lot better than the old design(s). My only complaint is that the black at the top doesn't match other Google properties. T

Well, I'll admit to being something of an interface Luddite -- most of my favorite web sites looked better, IMO, 10+ years ago. If we could have 20th-century interface simplicity with 21st-century connectivity, I'd be a happy camper. I have no idea if this is a majority opinion or not.

If the majority of users of a site I frequent prefer a new interface, as long as the content's good, I'll generally go along with it. What bugs me, like I said, is the combination of change-for-change's-sake with the patron

I can get behind change for the sake of change being a poor motivation. But if you are going to make functionality improvements, I see that as a good reason to change aesthetics. As a random example (because I happened to be on the site when I got the reply notification), GOG's current interface blows away their old one. Their old one was fine, but the new one has a lot more functionality, and they tied that functionality addition with a UI facelift. I think that's a good way to do it, because having a

P.S. If you don't have the snap to figure out that it's YOUR BROWSER that's displaying their content, and that you can control YOUR BROWSER such that it can be customize the pages it displays however you like: Well then, I don't have the patience to teach you how to do it... You'll just have to "Bing" userscripts yourself, (ugh...).

P.P.S. My local grocer changed his store layout to make it easier for their stockers, thu

Google used to receive mystery emails from this random guy, one every month, containing nothing but a single number.

After puzzling over it a while they realized this value was the number of words on their homepage that month; it was this guy's way of reminding them that a simple interface was working well and contrasted distinctly with the likes of yahoo!.

Fast forward to today, and the double-layer of scrolling frames on the new front page looks suspiciously like Word 2010 or Facebook. Not nearly as bad, mind you, but suddenly showing some disturbing similarity.

I bet that guy wants to punch them in the face right now.

Google: you make the vast majority of your money on the ads that go with your simple, powerful search engine. Don't fuck it up by filling your products with endless references to your other products and trying to control the entire internet.

These days Google has implemented spam filtering, so the periodic e-mails with numbers
in them probably wind up in/dev/null

Come to think of it... I think any e-mail to google winds up in/dev/null, after
being answered by an automated system that basically tells you "Little Ant, why don't you try
go posting in the forums, or something"

Not to troll (No.. Really...) but I do wonder how many of the people bemoaning the new changes Google is making are the same people who, when another one of Google's services is retired (health, etc..) say "Today was the first time i ever heard about Google%NowDeadService%..."

I think they have a pretty hard line to walk. They now offer so many services, but everyone complains when there are more than 5-10 words on the homepage? How would YOU solve that dilema? I don't think they are doing too bad a job at i

After puzzling over it a while they realized this value was the number of words on their homepage that month; it was this guy's way of reminding them that a simple interface was working well and contrasted distinctly with the likes of yahoo!

Or may be, there was no reason, and this guy was one of these folks here [latitudes.org].

I had no idea it was limited. As one of these random testers I'm not a fan of the new look. I just switched back to the old look for gmail and calendar. The old look while not as clean in over all design presents the information much clearer. The borders are of higher contrast and text is easier to read. Also going from gmail to calendar used to be a single link, now it requires clicking the drop down menu, going to the bottom for more, then back up to the top for calendar.

The page as it is now is fine, but it needs one thing changed. The black bar with gray text is hard to read. Why are web designers so obsessed with making their pages so hard to read? A little more contrast please.

It extends to programs, too. A lot of photographic software has a gray on black interface. Give me a choice of skins or at least a break!

The page as it is now is fine, but it needs one thing changed. The black bar with gray text is hard to read. Why are web designers so obsessed with making their pages so hard to read? A little more contrast please.

You can have a philosophy on specific issues, e.g. "Having a clean, minimalist main page is central to our design philosophy". An overarching philosophy gets applied to everything, from the webpage to the cafeteria.

Lots of complaining going on here. I probably wouldn't like the new look myself, as I much prefer simple, uncluttered interfaces anyway. But I can't remembrer the last time I had to go directly to the google.com website. Searches happen through the dedicated search box in Opera or Firefox, not by navigating to google.com. I also don't use any of their services, from calendar to google apps.